Monday, October 27, 2008

Lets Talk About Ear Infections

Well a crappy weekend fighting off the flu blended seamlessly into an epic battle with the Korean medical system to overpower a strong ear infection with weak ass Korean drugs.

My itchy eardrum turned to a fiery ball of tear inducing pain which warranted a trip to Dr. Kim on Thursday morn, so I sat on the edge of the bed waiting for the sun to come up and the Ibu's to kick in...A sleepless and near frantic shadow of myself winced through a barrage of hearing tests and scopes BEFORE any pain medication was administered.... The heartless and ignorant doctor gave me Tylenol ER 650mg...about a 1/4 of a pill stronger than an on the shelf Extra Strength Tylenol at home... "1 pill to be taken every 8 hours"

I said Pardon? (I really used MANY expletives in my head...)

I fell asleep for 45 minutes sometime around 10am on Friday morning. I was up most of the night standing in the hot shower as it seemed to remove the TNT exploding in the left side of my skull.

I spent the rest of the time playing with the Internet and fotoflexor to express myself via facebook.... here's what I ended up with:

John will go GODZILLA on this town looking for T3's or codeine...watch the F__K out!!

Ahhh the things you do on 72 minutes of sleep. I had a dream I was swimming in a murky lake around 10am and I had just come up from the bottom and needed to equalize my ears.....POP...I woke up screaming and freaking out...my eardrum had burst! I don't know if I actually tried to equalize my head with the ol' "Squeeze the nostrils and blow" technique or if I just dreamt it all....regardless...there was now red and yellow fluid running in a stream, out my ear, down my face.

Andrea again has been a true champion of champions, queen of all queens, most deserving of an awards show based solely on her awesomeness, followed by a mountain dedication with centaurs playing lutes....(or maybe just a ring or something)...She went out to lunch with an old friend who happened to have a small stash of codeine infused relief. Just 6 beautiful pills...the dosage was still much less than a single T3 however, and would only last in my over sized body with its over sized liver for maybe 2 hours. Yet, they provided me enough relief to get me through...till they ran out!

Sunday, Day 4 of a 5 day antibiotic cycle and there was no shortage of puss flowing from my ear..I went to emerg and demanded stronger painkillers and suggested my dosage of antibiotic was too weak....I was not surprised to find my suggestions totally ignored. (I later found out via Brenda that the appropriate antibiotic dosage is DOUBLE what they were giving me....idiots.

I went back to the Doctor on Tues and Wednesday..2 doctors, 2 opinions, 2 medications.... NO STRONGER PAINKILLERS!!! Seems like extra strength Tylenol is all people get here, from post surgery to ovarian cysts, 650mg Tylenol is the miracle Asian painkiller.

The 2nd doctor told me he would like to cut into my eardrum and relieve the pressure by inserting a tube to drain the excess fluid/puss buildup....pretty normal for severe infections. However, he told me it would be difficult due to my abnormally skinny ear canals..... wow, all this time and I never knew about this problem. He would normally spray some local anesthetic on the drum and start chopping but he had to soak a tissue and jam it in there to be sure he got the local all up in there. Well lets just say when the suction touched my ear I felt it...he knew this...AND THEN PROCEEDED TO CUT ME IN THE HEAD WITH A MICRO KNIFE!!! MY heart almost exploded out of my chest with pain...needless to say, he could not get the tube in place.

So, now I am on 2 painkillers, 2 sets of drops, 2 antibiotics, and am supposed to check in to the hospital to run an IV drip antibiotic to kill it all!!